


On the Record

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU, Chuck Lives, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 03:38:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Operation Pitfall goes off without a hitch. While everyone else celebrates, Naomi Sokolov hunts for an exclusive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Record

The iron door scrapes my knuckles when I knock, and I don't know whether it's even audible from the other side. There's a peephole, but Hansen doesn't bother with it--just yanks the hatch open a few inches and then freezes. He looks like he's ready to yell at someone. He looks like he just got out of the shower, or whatever decontamination process Rangers go through upon returning from a mission. He looks nothing but weary. "How the hell did you get in here?" 

I flash my Shatterdome visitor pass. It's not a temporary job; this one is laminated and hologrammed, name and photo, official as can be. "Tendo did me a favor. Have you got a minute, Ranger Hansen?"

"I'm not allowed to say anything without my handlers approving it in advance. You want a soundbite, come to the press conference in the morning." He puts his shoulder to the door.

I stick my foot over the lip of the hatch, and am immediately grateful for the heightened reflexes of Jaeger pilots, because the door would crush my foot if he didn't catch it in time. "I'm not here for a soundbite, Ranger," I tell him. "I want an exclusive, and you might as well give it to me now, because I won't stop asking. And this is the only time I'll bring gifts." I lift the flap of my bag to show him a fifth of Limeburners single malt. A little taste of home.

His expression doesn't change, but he opens the door wide enough for me to come in. His quarters are spartan in a way that suggests he doesn't own enough stuff to make a mess. A brown and white bulldog waddles happily over to me and deposits a ribbon of drool on my shoe. 

"So, Naomi. Can I call you Naomi?" Hansen draws it: Nayowmi. He pulls a chair out from under his desk, then seats himself on the bed and makes kissy noises at the dog until it returns to him.

"Sure, Chuck." I plunk the bottle down on his desk and put my recorder next to it. 

"Is everything I say going on the record, Naomi?" 

"Just tell me when, and I'll hit pause." 

"Right." Then he sees me unwrap the shot glasses, stacked like used communion cups, and whistles low. "Jesus. Why do we need all of those?"

I'm already pouring. "It's easier to keep count this way. I thought we'd start with one for every kaiju you've killed."

He corrects my math: there were three of them on their way up the Breach when Striker Eureka released its payload. Those thirteen shots burn like a mother. Eyes watering, I turn on the recorder. 

Ten minutes later, he's loosening up, recounting the events at Challenger Deep with a soldier's economy of description. His words are still rehearsed, all Jaeger jock bravado tempered by the perverse need to come off humble when he's actually got just about the biggest head in the universe. "Gipsy Danger's a great Jaeger with a great crew, and I'm glad they had our back, y'know? But I'm even more glad we didn't need them in the end. Matter of fact, you should be interviewing Mori and Becket right now--they had a better view of it all than I did."

"I would, but they seem to have dropped off the face of the planet."

"Eh. Not everyone can cope with fame." 

"How do you think Stacker Pentecost would have coped with it?"

For just an instant there is something unguarded in his face, and I can't tell which way this is going to go. Maybe he'll snap at me, ask who this interview is supposed to be about. From what I've seen, he gets touchy about sharing the spotlight, and it's convenient for him that his copilot died after the mission, but he's going to have to get used to answering questions like this. Not that I'm looking for the same canned answers everyone else will get tomorrow morning. "No point wondering about that, love," he says at last. 

I pour a shot for each of us, for the Marshal. "What happened out there? Did he live long enough to see his plan work?"

Hansen tosses it back and puts on a pensive expression that doesn't really fit on his face. He's going to need more practice before the talk show circuit. "He was ill. I guess everyone knows that now. But he held it together--I swear that man could Drift with anyone on the planet. And he got the job done. After we dropped the bomb, I sent him an image through the Drift. A gunslinger, like in a spaghetti Western, y'know? He laughed out loud." He pours another for himself, and me. "On the walk back I could feel him fading, but he held the handshake all the way into the dome. When we disengaged, he collapsed. I held onto him, until. Well." He starts pouring for both of us. "One for every fallen Mark I Ranger, eh?"

Shit. I won't be able to spell after this, and I need this story online tonight. I take my shots. Then, to distract myself from the burn, I say, "Would you have preferred to have your dad beside you on that run?"

"Would I rather Pentecost was still here?" I'll leave that in the final draft. People's answers are never as interesting as the questions they try to answer instead. "Of course. But that's another thing there's no point thinking about. Didn't happen that way. End of story." 

I set out three glasses for him and three for me. "One for each of the Hansens." 

He adds one more glass to each row and jerks his chin at the dog. "Wouldn't want Max to feel left out." Gives me a sloppy, boyish grin, complete with dimples. Jeez. This guy. "Here's the thing, Naomi," he rasps after we drink. "If Striker Eureka is the last Jaeger that ever goes into the ocean, I'm glad it went there with Stacker Pentecost in the Conn-Pod. He never gave up on this program, and he brought the mission to completion. That's the way it ought to be."

It's so easy to speak well of the dead. He makes it sound convincing--the press will eat that shit up, and the public will love him even more for it. "Will it be the last?"

Hansen slumps against the wall behind his bunk. Max takes the opportunity to climb onto his lap, tongue lolling, and Hansen scratches at the dog's rolls. "I know, I know, they've already started on the 'eternal vigilance' business. Why wouldn't the kaiju try again? Open another Breach, pour more monsters through it, and we go through the whole mess. If that's what happens, I'll be back. Striker Eureka will be back. You can count on it."

How reassuring. That's another line they'll eat up at the press conference in the morning; Earth's future is in such good hands. "How do you think you'll adjust to life without the Jaeger program?"

He shrugs. "Won't be all that different. The cameras already love me." Not as much as he loves them. "A bit less death-defying, on a daily basis. Not as much travel, at least after things die down. But--" He stretches as he sits up, dislodging Max. "--there'll always be Jaeger flies. Speaking of which..." He picks up the bottle and holds it at the ready. "One for every Ranger you've banged."

Oh, this is gold, and he didn't even tell me to pause the recorder. It's cute that he thinks he has me pegged, that he thinks that's why I'm here. He has a long road ahead of him, and one day he'll fuck it up: say something he shouldn't, come on to the wrong person. 

But no, that's not true. The world is going to hand him everything he wants and sweep all his misdeeds under the rug. I should be pissed off, but instead I'm fighting a smirk as I pick up a single glass. He looks disappointed, or maybe surprised that I didn't just throw it in his face and walk out; he pours and we drink to Yancy. Hansen has his mouth open to say something else when we hear a series of bangs on the hatch. Sounds like it's about to cave in. Who could be that strong?

Someone named Hercules, apparently. "Press conference starts early, Chuck," calls Herc Hansen through the iron door. Max perks up his crooked ears, while Chuck's face goes completely blank. "Long day. You should get some rest." The Ranger on the bunk stares at nothing, and the man outside waits, and I feel as incongruous as a potted plant in this suddenly too-cold room. Then, softly, "I'm proud of you, son." Footsteps down the hall.

Hansen is still for another thirty seconds, then he comes back to life and takes a swig directly from the bottle. He leans back again, like he plans to cuddle the Limeburners and the dog to sleep. "That your exposé, Naomi?" he slurs, just about gone. "The kid who saved the world gets ratshit and hides from his dad? What a tosser, right?" 

I start packing up everything but the bottle. "That's not the story I'm writing. Every person who had a hand in what happened today deserves to be remembered as a hero." I stop the recorder, get up, hoist my bag--lighter now--and hold his other gift out to him. 

He looks up at me for a minute before reaching up to take it. I lean over and kiss him on one warm, stubbled cheek. "Thank you, Chuck."

As I shut the door behind me I get a glimpse of him looking at the bit of gold on a chain. A Saint George medallion. He looks stricken. Those might be real tears in his eyes.

I'm past a bend in the hall when I hear him throw the hatch open and shout, "Naomi, wait!" Already gone. But in the morning at the press conference (which I don't really need to attend because my story went live at three o'clock Hong Kong time--not my cleanest writing, sobering up like that, but definitely my rawest), he's wearing it with his dog tags.

**Author's Note:**

> Because Naomi deserves to be remembered as something other than a plot point, and also because Chuck did not get enough opportunities to be an angsty shithead in canon.


End file.
